And first of all, I want to thank El Salvador and their president for their partnership with the United States of America to bring our terrorists here and to incarcerate them.
And it looks like a scene from a very different period of history. US Secretary of Homeland Security Christine Noam standing in front of a prison pen filled with gaunt, shirtless men, their head shaved, staring silently at the cameras.
First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted.
But the footage is from Ol Salvador, where the US government has whisked away over two hundred Venezuelan migrants to be held in a notorious prison. It's just one of the surreal propaganda post that Trump administration has put out, bragging about imprisoning men they deemed murderous gang affiliated terrorists. But looking at these images, one woman saw not a terrorist but her husband.
And she recognizes a tattoo on his neck of a hummingbird, and she said, he got it because it signolizes kind of good vibes energy. So she recognized that and she was like, that's my husband.
Another person who viewed the footage is reported Noel Leonard, who said at the fond who was taken and why?
So the way that we want to go about finding this is it's quite bleak in a lot of ways. In my colleague Isabella and I were on Facebook and TikTok, you know, googling things like who's tcl Salvador or Venezuela, like justice El Salvador, and you would see these videos from families that are heartbreaking, saying please, we're looking for a proof of life. We're looking for them to be released.
Yea for Ela se.
Kecia, terrorista's criminalist. But yeah, I mean it was just searching kind of these this prize for help that exists on social media almost almost entirely in Spanish.
From Schwartz Media on Daniel James. This is seven a m. Today. Noel Leonard, a reporter at Mother Jones on the people in America, who is disappearing and what the spectacle deportations says about where America is headed. It's Monday, April seventh. Noah, you've been trying to find out about that he's main living in America who was suddenly deported to El Salvador. So to start with Can you tell me a little bit about Niri Alvarado Borjes.
Yeah, absolutely so. Alvarado Borhez is someone who I spoke to her for a story that my colleague Isabella and Diaz and I were doing. He's twenty five years old. He just turned twenty five. He's from a kind of more rural part of Venezuela and came to the United States seeking asylum, also looking for economic opportunity. Obviously, Venezuela's economy has suffered one of the worst collapses in modern history. And at the time he's picked up as he's working
at a bakery. His boss, who I interviewed that he was working basically seven seven every day, was an extremely hard worker and just kind of a great guy. And then on February fourth, he gets picked up by ICE or Immigration Enforcement Agency. They come out right in front of his apartment looking for him by name, and then they bring him into the ICE kind of office and say, hey,
you're here because we're picking up people with tattoos. We're interrogating people with tattoos who are Venezuelan looking to see if they belong to this gang that has become a bigger news item recently in the US because of the Trump administration called trend de Aragua.
So like the tiny asked to see his tattooes to check whether he's affiliated with a gang. What does Alvarado do.
What he showed them was an autism awareness tattoo with the name of his brother, a fifteen year old with autism. That's on his leg. And then he has two other tattoos. One is in English it says brother again about his brother, and the other says familia family. What is so strange about this case is that the ICE agent said, you know, basically you're clean. We know you're not in a gang.
That's kind of absurd here. But despite all that, he a little over a month later ends up being sent to El Salvador, accused of being theoretically a gang member. And he is there and no one in his family has spoken to him.
Since when you were speaking to these families, was there any evidence that the people in their family that were being sent to El Salvador were actually gang members?
Nothing that I saw that, you know, nothing that would really hold up in a court. And what was striking is we spoke, you know, ten families, All ten said their relatives had tattoos, and that's why they believed that their relatives had been picked up.
And so can you tell me a little bit about the process of getting these men to El Salvador. Were they told where they were going, while they were going there, what the process was, what their rights were. Can you give us any insight into what, if any process was involved in this deportation.
The short answer is no. And then to explain and expand on that, basically you had Venezuelan's calling their family members on Friday Friday night, March fourteenth, saying, Okay, we've been told we're going to be sent to Venezuela and
there as far as we know. While they're on that plane in the air, they believe they're going to Venezuela, and it may only be when they land and basically walk out of the plane and they're in chains, and then they see basically the Salvador and military and police apparatus in masks kind of waiting for them, and they're then kind of frog marched off the plane and onto
buses and into this prison. But most of these people had open immigration cases, meaning like they were scheduled to be in court tomorrow or last week, and you know they in many cases people we spoke to, like the judge would say, hey, where's the guy, and the government's own attorney would say, you know, we're not sure, and then the defense attorney would have to say, well, I think he might be an L. Salvador and that would kind of be the end of the case because the
judge no longer has jurisdiction.
And has anyone heard from them since has anyone actually spoken with them.
Not that I'm aware of. They have no way to contact these family members. They don't know when they're going to get out, are they ever going to get out? And so it's just every day is torture.
After the break the message the Trump administration wants to send all of us.
Hi Ruby Jones.
Here.
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Noah, can you tell me about the prison where these men have been sent? What do we know about this place?
Yeah, so this is known as one of the world's most infamous prisons. It was built only a few years ago as part of President Bukelly's state of Exception, essentially martial law, and it was theoretically built a whold kind of the worst of the worst MS thirteen gang members, the people who had made El Salvador into the one of the world's most brutal and violent countries. It's called the Terrorism Confinement Center in English, and it is a
very extreme environment. It is known for having horrendous conditions. Prisoners spend about twenty three and a half hours a day and they're basically barracks. I think it's about eighty people per unit, and they live in bunks that are stacked four high, with no mattresses, no calls to family.
It's even a stretch to call it a prison. I think it's nothing like what people think of a prison, and a lot of the images, frankly, are reminiscent of what you solve concentration camps in the twentieth century.
Now, can you explain why the Venezuelan community is being single outlocked these Yeah.
So during the Biden administration, Venezuelans were the largest group of migrants coming to the United States. It really was off scale and records any numbers in the hundreds of thousands each year, And that was, I was totally unprecedented. Even though Venezuela's economy had been, you know, in a terrible position for many years, it didn't translate to that
kind of massive numbers at the borders. Many of those people ended up being bussed all around the United States, including to where I live in New York City, by the tens of thousands, and so it became this kind of big it's a big national issue. But the Trump administration now kind of needs, I think, to a villain here or a boogeyman to kind of target here and
trend there. A Agua, this gang which I most Americans still probably have never heard of or certainly have never heard of one year ago, has become that as.
We speak, heavily on im Venezuela and gangs or taking over entire apartment buildings and apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, terrorizing your residence and taking over the old days. You have to pay to buy that bill.
So the Trump administration declared trend Aragua foreign terrorist organization. And for people who don't live in the United States, like there are probably some issues with trend are Agua. I'm sure there are some crimes committed by people affiliated with it, but it's not a major gang. It's not MS thirteen. Also, it's importantly it's not known for tattoos being an identifying mark for its members, despite that being
one of the main things that Trump administration used. And the second thing they did, which is probably more important here is for only for the fourth time in the entirety of American history, they invoked a seventeen ninety eight wall called the Alien Enemies Act, and that is only supposed to be used when America's in times of war
or invasion. So this has not been used since we were using it basically to round up potential Nazis in at the height of World War Two, and this case, obviously we're not at war with then as well, of course we're not, so they have to say we're under invasion by this gang, and it's patently absurd.
And so the Trump administration's going into sort of full propaganda mode when it comes to exaggerating the reasons as to wall they're being sent. What is the administration getting out of.
That I think they're getting I would say two things that immediately come to mind to me. One you could argue there's putting pressure on Venezuela to resume taking deportation flights, so that would be one, And the second is the spectacle of it. This facility is.
One of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.
And you're right, I'm shocked there wasn't a prison break, Yeah, because that's like a riot right there. You know, I'm surprised if they could walk Tom Holman through that jail and you think he's hot at that point.
But Christy, my god.
So this you know what I love about that visit.
She stood in front of criminals in their environment, because usually Democrats when they want you to see criminals.
Part of it here is, you know, there are only so many ICE agents in the United States, and there are twelve million or so undocumented immigrants in the United States. They don't have the capacity to arrest even a large percentage of those people. And what they're relying on and hoping for is is self deportation essentially, So in some sense, the fact that there are innocent people, clearly innocent people in this prison now has it benefit to them because
it is horrifying. It makes people, even people who are following all the rules here, who have opened court cases, feel that they could be next and maybe then they all get on a plane and go back home, which is what the Trump administration wants them to do.
And what's been the general reaction to these deportations and people being picked up off the streets. Is this something that people that are talking about.
Yeah, initially, the Trump administration and I did a lot of stories on the attitudes of Latino voters before the election, and they were really sure. They said, well, I'm all four criminals being deported so and that's what Trump says he's going to do, so it doesn't bother me. And I think, initially, and if you look at the polling right now, still Trump's kind of immigration approval is still favorable. I think it was about fifty eight forty two approve
of his overall deportation efforts. But if you look at this El Salvador Venezuela operation that pulls quite negatively. So I think it's starting to shift as people start to realize, you know, oh, this is not just all hardened criminals and gang members who are being sent there.
Could this approach affect other movements within American society, locked their pro Palestinian movement for instance.
Yeah, I mean I think that is. You know, you have to see these as length you're having. For example, someone like Mark mu Khalil, who's a Green card holder married to an American citizen, whose wife is pregnant eight months pregnant at the time of the arrest, being arrested at is Columbia University student housing apartment and sent to
an immigration detention center in Louisiana. I used to report on the detention center during the first Trump administration, the idea that a Green card holder is now there because of political speech and he's not alone. You know, they were going after a Columbia University juniorlea, which is one of our most elite universities in Ivy League school. She had come to the United States when she was seven years old. And that's all just because of pretty milk toast pro Palestine activism.
Right, So, at the end of the day, Trump is doing what he said he do. The polms indicate that what he is doing is popular. But when it comes to these man, what happens to them? Now? What does their future look? Luck?
Yeah, it is very unclear. There's a very contentious and high drama court case right now having the United States. You know, the judge would order that these jets be turned around while they're in the AIRHL salvad Or in the Trump administration extremely rare move basically ignored that court order, so that court case is continuing to heat up. It's bleak to say, but the best possibility would be that they are let out and allowed to be deported to Venezuela.
I mean, I think the odds of them returning to the United States are quite slim. I don't want to say it's impossible, but if you're a family member who has a son or a husband there, you have no idea not only when you will see your loved one, but when you might even ever be able to know that they're alive.
Now, look, thanks so much for your reporting and thanks so much for you Tom.
Yeah, no, thank you for having me on.
Also in the years today, Prime Minister Anthony Albernezi has pledged two point three billion dollars to be spent on subsidizing home batteries should his government be re elected. Labour release data showing that while one in three Australian households have solar panels, only one in forty have a battery. Batteries can push household bills down and reduce reliance on
the grid. The new plan will make the cost of installing a new home battery thirty percent cheaper and is designed to find one million more units by twenty thirty and Peter Darton has promised to cut the number of international students in Australia by eighty thousand per year if elected. The opposition leader has argued that international students are contributing to the housing crisis. The policy would allow thirty thousand fewer foreign students than Labour's plan announced last year. I'm
Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.
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